Sorry, I tried and I don't have the patience to sit through any books I am not enjoying right now. My tolerance is at an all time low. This book should have been a pleaser with me. It takes on "You've Got Mail" and "The Shop Around the Corner". I love "You've Got Mail" it has Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan who I wish were in more things.

And then there's this book. I don't know. Maybe it was the Young Adult setting and I just didn't have patience anymore for the lead character's constant inner monologue about how she hated the male lead but still found him attractive. And the male lead was a jerk and I just didn't have the energy to read about how she gets swept away by him. I quit around the 39 percent mark. I just could not keep reading this. I promptly sent it back to the library (e-book hold) and went about the rest of my day.

"Alex, Approximately" is about a teenager Bailey (called Mink) Rydell who goes to live with her father in California. We get enough bare bones about Bailey's life with her mother and her mother's new husband to know that living with her father was probably the best thing for her. But as I will go into further down below we don't get a real sense of either of Bailey's parents at all. Since I quit this at the 39 percent mark though, maybe she finally has a real conversation with her parents and doesn't do the Artful Dodger mess the author kept repeating ad nauseam as a quirky characteristic of Bailey.

Bailey's besides being excited to be with her dad, is happy that she is now in the same state and city as a guy named Alex who she has been talking to online for several months. They both love movies and though Alex keeps asking her to come and visit him she's reluctant. There's a whole thing about why she hasn't told Alex she's now living in the same city as him but I don't have the energy for it besides it's dumb and it's the only way that the plot the author set up even makes sense down the road, so just go with it.

Bailey's father gets her a job at the world's worst sounding museum and she runs into a guy named Porter Roth who I am just going to flat out call a jerk. Sorry, but he is. I really wish that YA authors took the time with their male leads in these type of books as they did the girls. I just want to ask them. So if you met a guy like Porter in real life, would you think he's charming? Cause up until about the 35 percent mark Porter was an ass. Sorry. There was enough run-ins with him to that point that just showed that besides him judging Bailey and pressuring her to tell him her business (I hate people that do that) he just acts entitled. And once the book went the way of Bailey starting to crush on him I had to tap out. I just don't care. There was even some whole scene about her not being able to eat because she was thinking about Porter and I maybe rolled my eyes and hurt myself.

There are a few other characters in this book that looked interesting, but we don't spend much time with them (Bailey's parents, her new friend Grace, and some of the other characters that she works with) and when we do spend time with them there's not much there, there. The book seems to be setting up some sort of confrontation with Bailey and Porter's friend Davy and I just don't care. Sorry. I can just see the story-line from a million miles away and I don't have the patience for it.

The writing is serviceable. In between chapters, Bennett, jumps to showing texts between Alex and Bailey and it was okay. I will say one thing though, that unless you are a huge film buff, the quotes at the top of each chapter are not going to mean much to you. Luckily for me I watch a lot of classic films and just movies in general so I definitely got the quotes. I will say one thing though, I at least agreed with Bailey and Porter about how terrible "Breakfast At Tiffany's" the movie was when you look at how offensive that mess was with Mickey Rooney. I definitely enjoyed the book much more.

The flow was jagged throughout. I think that's because we keep hearing about something mysterious that happened to Bailey that I am going to just take a wild guess about. I skipped to the end to see if was correct and I was.

I do still enjoy reading young adult books because when you read a really good one, you just want to keep re-reading it again and again. I just may take a little break cause I have been reading a lot of duds lately.